Project Portfolio Management: A View From The Management Trenches

11.5. EXECUTIVE STEERING COMMITTEE

This committee is made up of the C-level executives. They set the strategic vision and objectives for a given program or project. They lead efforts to build consensus throughout the organization to support the project or program objectives. They are also the tie breakers when there's an impasse at a lower-level committee. Ideally, they meet once a quarter to review the status of major projects and programs and also to ratify the priority of ongoing projects as well as any that are in the pipeline or planning stages. The threshold for a project to show up on the executive steering committee's project list is dependent on cost and/or strategic importance of the project as well as the committee members' appetite for detail. There are no industry standards in defining this threshold. Some organizations focus exclusively on capital expense to define the threshold. Some organizations' primary expense "currency" is internal labor cost. You define the threshold that is most appropriate for your organization. For organizations that use the internal labor cost as the primary driver of the cost of a project, we recommend that you establish one blended labor cost for the organization. This simplifies the process of building business cases for the project teams as well.